


Apples

by icarus_chained



Series: Weregild 'verse [3]
Category: Irish Mythology, Norse Mythology - Fandom, Supernatural, The Bible
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-04-27
Updated: 2012-04-27
Packaged: 2017-11-04 10:19:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/392772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icarus_chained/pseuds/icarus_chained
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This one is incomplete. Without the apples of Idunn, Loki's body starts to fail. He and Gabriel go looking for a substitute</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It took Gabriel a long time to notice it. Far longer than it should have. 

There were various reasons for that, of course. It wasn't _just_ obliviousness. His own Grace clouded the issue, affecting Loki more and more powerfully over time. There was also the fact that he had less and less time in between panicking to be thinking about it, as Loki took them again and again on wild quests, thieving from dwarves and sneaking around the edges of Asgard, a bold and laughing challenge to an increasingly irritated Odin, though his god grew steadily grimmer and more determined about them as time went on. All mitigating circumstances, helping to excuse his stunning failure to see the obvious. 

But more prominently, there was the fact that Loki had very deliberately hidden it from him. Changed their appearance to flow between youth and age, ostensibly as a disguise. Kept them from mirrors and pools, distracted Gabriel as best he could. Loki hid it from him. 

He should have figured it out sooner. He should have seen the growing desperation of those sallies for what it was, should have felt the creeping touch of age underneath the steady pulse of his Grace. Should have realised what was happening. But he didn't. Not until they lounged by a pool one day, visiting with Jor, and Gabriel had happened to glance at their reflection while Loki was distracted by his son. Not until he saw an aged man sitting under the tree, russet hair rapidly silvering and lines creeping across his face, when Loki had made no effort to make them look old. When he knew for a fact that Loki hadn't disguised them in any way.

Not until he saw that, did he realise. Loki was getting old. 

Loki was _dying_.

The god knew the moment he figured it out. Loki knew the second he realised, gathering them to their feet in a sudden panic, whisking them away from a bewildered Jor without so much as a goodbye, leaving Gabriel no time to react, even if he could have around the sudden, paralysing rush of shock. No time to react, but ... time enough to see, in the second as they turned, Jormungandr's expression turn from surprise to a deep, aching sadness. He did have time to see that.

He had time, at the sight of it, for shock to turn to something more vital, more virulent. He had time to get _angry_.

Loki was a hell of a runner, when he was pushed, and he had taken as much control of the body as he could, one rapid burst of terror and determination, running hard and fast. Running from something he couldn't escape, and Gabriel was suddenly just angry enough to let him _know_ about it. He caught them in their run, stopping Loki cold in a rush of wings and fury. Loki snarled at him silently, straining against Gabriel's control of their -his- body, fighting the possession, fighting _Gabriel_ , for the first time in decades. Fighting hard but, weakened and dying as he apparently was, the god had no chance. Not against an archangel's fury. Gabriel stopped them cold.

"Planning on _telling_ me anytime soon?" he snarled, vicious and pained, finding a nice high cliff above a fjord where the god couldn't run, even if Gabriel _hadn't_ been inside him, threaded through him ... pissed off as all hell ... He wished, for one white moment, that Loki had a body he could _shake_ , that the god was separate enough from him for violence to actually be an option. The sick knot of sudden fear in his belly demanded a more visceral resolution than words allowed.

"If you can't spot it for yourself, archangel, maybe you don't deserve to know!" the god snapped back, still struggling. Straining against the touch of Gabriel's Grace, fighting with a viciousness Gabriel had almost forgotten the god had. Fighting the way Loki always fought, when he was afraid.

"I don't _deserve_ to know!?" he repeated incredulously, furiously. What the ...? "I don't deserve to know that you're _dying_!? That _we're_ dying!? That you've been withering away around me for ... how long? How _long_? How long have you been hiding ..."

"What does it matter to you!" Loki shouted suddenly, going still so fast and hard it almost hurt, almost shook Gabriel away from him, as far as the body allowed. Going still with a hard, vicious restraint as he snarled inside Gabriel. "What does it matter, archangel. It won't kill you. You might have to find another vessel on short notice, but it won't kill ..."

He shut up, feeling the wave of emotion that hurtled through Gabriel at that, the crippling surge of shock and white pain and battered, distant anger. Loki fell silent.

"Another ... After all this ... After Jor, and Hel, after _Fenrir_ , you think ..." The words sounded colourless, even to his own ears, nothing worthy of a Messenger, but they were too distant to be anything else, said by another mouth a mile away, and Gabriel could barely care. 

Loki sagged. Sank back, releasing his determined hold on the body and leaving Gabriel in control once more, curling back in exhaustion against the archangel's Grace. The Grace that had been sustaining him, Gabriel realised, for possibly a lot longer than he knew. He hadn't noticed, the leakage lost in the wild jumble of his and Loki's joining, the sheer size and strength of an archangel's Grace holding them both together. Loki had stolen it, lightfingered and desperate, and he'd never noticed. 

He hadn't noticed a lot of things, apparently.

"I don't think, Gabriel," his god whispered softly. "Not that. I _want_ to, because it would be so much easier to deal with than ... than _you_ , you clingy archangel, but ..."

Gabriel shook their head, closing his eyes in frustration. "Why didn't you _tell_ me?" he asked, quietly. Maybe a little desperately. "Why didn't you say something? Did you think I wouldn't help, would ... take back my Grace, or ... _Why_ , Loki?"

"Because you can't fix it," the Trickster answered. Flatly, even coldly, a sudden hard veneer. "Not without picking a direct fight with Odin, or announcing your presence to anyone who cares to look at us. If I use much more of your Grace, it's going to be very obvious exactly what's resting under this skin, Gabriel, and I've no interest in fighting _your_ family as well as ... well. Everyone else. And there's no way ... I've _tried_ , but Odin knows I'm coming, he's known all along what I'd have to do, and there's no way in ..."

"Loki," Gabriel interrupted, softly and dangerously, reaching around inside them to gather the god to him in a gesture somewhere between comfort and threat. "How about you stop for a second, think this through, and then tell me _what the hell is going on_!" He stopped, breathed for a second. "And then, when you're done, we can start thinking of doing something about it." He sensed Loki move to speak, and held up a (rather useless) hand. "I refuse to believe you, of all people, intend to give up, so shut it, Trickster. Tell me what's going on."

Loki stayed silent for a long, long minute. More in shock than consideration, Gabriel thought wryly, though the gears never stopped turning in that dark and laughing mind. Loki was silent for a long while. Until ...

"You know we're not like you," the Trickster said at last. "The Aesir. We're not like First-father and his angels. We were born, not made. And our immortality is a little more ... fragile." A wry smile, a dark little curl of their lips as Loki gave in to sardonic self-amusement. Gabriel gave him the expression, and kept his own bitter smile to himself. 

"I got that much. Skip the cosmology, Jotunsson," he murmured quietly. "Get to the details." Like how to keep you _alive_ ...

"I'm getting to it, Messenger," his god flashed back, brittle and fragile himself, for more reasons perhaps than fading immortality. "Do you want to understand, or do you want to growl at me some more?"

Gabriel didn't answer. A bit of both ...

"Her name is Idunn," Loki went on at last, petulantly, and a little obliquely. "The goddess Idunn. You haven't met her. Ever since the little incident with Thjazi, she doesn't get outside Asgard much, and since I've been free I suspect ... No. I _know_ Odin has been keeping her under tight wraps. He's not going to chance my getting my hands on her again."

"Again?" Gabriel interrupted, rather dryly. "Do I want to know?"

"I was under coercion at the time!" Loki snapped. "It was either get pulled apart, or give the feathery bastard his pretty goddess and her apples. And besides! I got her back!"

" _Also_ under coercion?" Gabriel asked, and felt the rush of bitterness in answer. Figured. He'd noticed over the years that there was a bit of theme going on in his god's past dealings with the Aesir. Bastards. "Never mind, Loki. Just tell me there's some relevance here, yes?"

"There's relevance," Loki confirmed quietly. "Idunn ... She's what keeps the Aesir alive. Well. Her apples, to be precise. Idunn, the Keeper of Youth. Those apples ... one bite, and life flows back through your veins, archangel. Youth, power. Life. But without them ... well. You saw what we look like now. Without them ... I probably shouldn't have lasted even this long, except your Grace has more than a little juice itself ..."

Gabriel digested that. Digested the implications. "Odin knew," he said at last, very quietly. "He knew the moment he let us go, that first time, didn't he? That as long as he held Idunn ... That's why he hasn't move against you, despite you menacing Asgard at every possible turn. He's hoping either you'll die, or I'll have to reveal myself, long before he has to take any direct action."

Loki nodded. "And he's not wrong," the god said softly. "He's not wrong, Gabriel. Your Grace is getting more and more obvious inside us, the weaker I get and the more I have to use it to stay alive. We can't breach Asgard, we can't reach Idunn, and it won't be too long before ... well. Before your cover isn't worth shit, and my continued existence comes into serious question." He smiled lopsidedly, ignoring how Gabriel clenched their jaw. "Now you know why I didn't push my blood-brother, Gabriel. Not until ... not until the murder of my children started being an option he condoned, anyway. He doesn't tend to lose."

Gabriel made a deliberate effort to loosen their jaw, ignoring the wry twitch Loki put to the corner of their mouth. Oddly, most of what he felt from the god now was relief, and a sort of bitter amusement, and after a second Gabriel realised that the fear he'd felt before, the fear that had made Loki fight him, hadn't been fear of Odin, or death, or the age creeping through their veins. It had been fear of _him_ , his reaction. Loki had been afraid of what he'd do, once he knew.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he asked again, very, very quietly, but part of him knew. Part of him knew.

"We made a deal," Loki said, almost sheepishly, bitterly defiant. "A deal ... A deal I can't keep, Gabriel, not without Idunn's apples. Without them, I won't _have_ a body to share in return for my freedom. Not that it will matter to me by that point, but you ... I don't break my word, Gabriel, and especially not ... not to family, but this time I have promised something I can't give."

"And you thought ... what? That I'd put you back in the hole, try to find another vessel? Let Odin _have_ you?" He didn't quite succeed in keeping the hurt from his voice, or the press of soul between them, but he was proud of the effort he'd managed to make. "Loki ..."

"No," the god whispered quietly. "Not ... Yes, a little. Gabriel ... survival is survival, and this puts you in a lot of danger. It would not ... I would not ..." Loki trailed off in frustration, leaving Gabriel only the wash of old hurt, bitterness, protective determination, strange surrender and the faint tang of fear to help him puzzle out his god's reasoning. 

Loki was a Trickster and a liar and a thief, who would do pretty much anything to survive. But he'd made a deal, and whatever else the god would do, he would not break his word. Especially not when he gave it to family.

Even if that family killed him for keeping it.

"I don't hurt family, Loki," Gabriel said at last, resisting the urge to pull his soul a little away from the god's, resisting the old instinct to hide before his mouth could give him away, and leave them room to hurt him. Family. Always, family. "Not anymore, not again. Not _you_. Not you, not your children, not any of this ridiculous family you've ... you've let me into. I don't hurt family. I _won't_."

Loki was silent again. Just for a minute, silent and still, before he wrapped himself almost tentatively around Gabriel, around the archangel cradled inside his dying body, against his soul. Loki curled close, hard and bitter and warm, and sighed against Gabriel's mind.

"So what do we do, archangel?" he murmured, rich and tired and blackly laughing. "What do we do?"

And Gabriel thought, about gods and immortality, and death and goddesses, and the knowing look in Jor's eyes as they fled. He thought about other worlds, and other faiths, and how there was more than one way to skin a cat. He thought about how long Loki had been dying around him, and the tightness around Hel's eyes as she watched, the cold anger and faint exasperation he hadn't understood. Another thing he'd failed to take note of. Until now.

"I'll tell you what we do," he murmured, spreading his wings and looking north, to the cold shadows where Niflheim waited. "We go ask your very patient children what it is they've been plotting for years now, and hope Hel reins in the urge to growl at us for being so blind. That's what we do."

Loki blinked, long and hard. 

Then he smiled.


	2. Chapter 2

The fog had fallen thick and silent across them, a shroud of mist that walled them in, wrapped around them and reduced the world to nothing but the wash of the sea, the quiet slap of waves against the boat, and the ghost-glimmer of distant daylight. The mist had fallen over them where they lay waiting, a tiny figure in a tiny boat somewhere in the North Atlantic. A whisper of life in a vast cauldron of silence, waiting in the dimness.

It was driving Gabriel mad.

Loki shifted them, crossing their legs in the bow of the boat, tilting his head to watch the fog, and feeling the archangel shift agitatedly inside him. A mist inside a mist, he thought wryly. If mist could burn, anyway. Gabriel was ... oddly vast, for something wrapped so tight within him. Oddly vast, and oddly soft. He'd never even noticed as Loki stole from him, pulled wisps of Grace into himself. A feast, living in his breast, and the archangel had never noticed him eat. 

Jor had. Hel had. Fenrir, too. They had all noticed, all seen Gabriel climb higher and higher behind his eyes, as Loki drew him to the surface to feast on him. Drew the archangel up for all to see, in order to stay alive. They had seen his desperation, behind Gabriel's joking facade. They had watched him betray the being he carried.

They had yet to forgive him, too. Gabriel had, if Gabriel had even noticed there was something to forgive in the first place. But his children hadn't. Might not, for a long time yet. They had grown very fond of the archangel, in their own ways.

Hence the boat. Hence the fog. Hence the pair of them, sitting waiting in the cold and the mist while the current carried them gently further and further from shore. Hel's instructions, given in tones to freeze even the sturdiest of Niflheim's inhabitants. The Goddess of Death passing judgement in the same breath she offered respite. His daughter, in a very, _very_ bad mood.

"How long is this supposed to take?" Gabriel asked again. For something like the twentieth time, his Grace shifting uneasily in Loki's chest, watching the waves snatching gently at the sides of the boat as if he expected them to reach up and snatch him. The archangel's strange fear of the sea. Not, Loki thought, because of wings and air, and the fear of drowning. The archangel's wings need never touch the physical world, if he didn't want them to. No. There was something deeper under it, some phantom of a distant drowning, something Gabriel had done or seen, so long ago. Something that made the waves look faintly red, in the archangel's eyes.

"Until he deigns to show himself," he answered quietly. Stiffly. Not really comfort, but he was still ... he didn't know, yet, if he had that right anymore. For a bargain almost broken, he didn't know if Gabriel was still his to comfort.

"Bloody pagans," the archangel muttered, still watching the waves, barely paying him any attention. Not in malice, though. In distraction. Ever since he had shaken the truth out of Loki, ever since he had learned they were dying, he had been ... distant. And then Hel's advice, and the cold presence of the sea, had only stolen him further away.

It was beginning to annoy Loki. More than annoy him. And really, he only had so much patience.

"O full of all subtilty and all mischief," he quoted softly, pointedly, grinning toothily at the waiting mists. "Thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord?" Gabriel turned inside him, a cold wash of shock and rampant disbelief, and then ... then there was anger. Just a touch. Just enough to shake him out of his sulk. Loki smiled, and finished. "And now, behold, the hand of the Lord is upon thee, and thou shalt be blind, not seeing the sun for a season. And immediately there fell on him a mist and a darkness; and he went about seeking some to lead him by the hand ...”

"You ..." Gabriel murmured, voice shaking slightly. "You ... you pagan, you ... you _dare_ ..."

Loki grinned viciously. "What?" he asked, innocently. "Here we are, we wicked two, in the mist and the darkness ... waiting for a kind pagan to lead us by the hand ... Doesn't it seem appropriate? Not even a little?"

"..."

"Oh, relax, archangel," he smirked, feeling Gabriel quivering in mute rage, laughing a little at the bright surge of him, out of melancholy distraction and right back into some nice, clean anger. "I'm not accusing you. If there's anyone in this boat who can claim subtilty and mischief ... And I was never all that fond of righteousness, either ..."

"Oh, shut up," Gabriel muttered, relaxing again. "And you're much more subtle than Elymas. Just don't go calling me my brother's servant again, or you might have trouble ..."

Loki grinned at the sea, hugging his arms around himself and the archangel inside him. "Noted. So long as you don't start moping all over my boat again, that's all I ask. I may be dying, and we may be surrounded by water, but that's no reason to get all depressed on me."

"No reason at all!" another voice boomed cheerfully, almost in their ear, and Gabriel yelped silently, their hand fumbling for a dagger while Loki did his best to keep them in the boat and not over the side in shock. He looked around desperately, crouched low in the bottom of the boat, and bristled while someone laughed at them. Not mockingly, but still ...

"That was _not_ nice," he hissed, searching the fog with narrowed eyes, finding nothing. The quiet chuckles had no source, reflected from place to place by the mist, phantom-like and soft. "Are you planning to show yourself, or just laugh yourself to death at my expense?"

"Don't you mean 'our' expense?" the voice asked again, but lightly, and something moved in the dimness at the stern of their boat. A swirl of mist, like someone removing a cloak, and an old man appeared by the rudder, laugh lines creasing the weathered skin around his eyes, grinning gently at them. 

Loki swallowed, and shifted his hand on the blade. "I don't know what you mean," he dissembled shortly, knowing he wouldn't be believed but trying anyway. "And it's not nice to eavesdrop, either." He paused, eyeing the creature narrowly, and added: "Manannan."

The god grinned at them, eyes sparkling. "Of course not, Loki. Does your daughter know about your tendency to talk to yourself?"

Loki growled, lowering the dagger, feeling Gabriel shift uneasily inside him. Surreptitiously spreading his wings, Loki thought, in case they had to move quickly. This was a bad plan. This was _such_ a bad plan. It had been a bad plan when Hel came up with it, but safe in her halls he'd agreed to it. Now, actually faced with the older god, with this lord of the sea and gatekeeper to the Otherworld ... Sea gods and psychopomps tended to be bad bets, as far as favours went. They tended to have tempers.

"Hel told you about me, then?" he asked quietly, sitting back down in the bow, with possibly a little more flounce than he'd intended, but he'd forgotten that Gabriel was here too, and not in a very good mood. 

Manannan smiled at him, sitting easily at the stern, hands resting lightly across his knees. "She told me about you, yes. Warned me about your tendency to snarl at people, too." A little grin, laughing at him. Then the sea god turned serious. "She didn't mention your ... passenger, though. She didn't mention what his stake in this little venture might be ..."

Gabriel stirred warily, opening their mouth, but Loki cut him off, poking at his Grace until he fell back, snarling quietly at him. Stupid archangel. That was _not_ how they did things. "Never mind. There's no passenger. I'm the one who needs ..." He paused, rethought that, as the sea god raised one eyebrow. "Who _requests_ your help. If you're willing to give it?" Gabriel blustered at him a little, apparently bewildered at the sudden switch to respectful, but Loki ignored that. The archangel had yet to have to beg for his life. Loki was just a little more used to it.

Manannan eyed him for a minute, silent as mists, as much a part of the hollow wash of waves and the creak of wood now as he had been moment ago, under the shield of his cloak. Loki did his best not to fidget under the silent gaze. The being in front of him was old, and strange, and there was something in his eyes that reminded Loki of Odin's pale stare, and the beady gazes of Thought and Memory. Something that reminded him of the All-father, and set a shiver down his spine. This was such a bad, bad plan ...

"I might be," the god said at last, thoughtfully, still watching them. "I might be willing to help you, Loki mac Farbauti. But ..." He smiled faintly, watching their grimace, but with something grim under it, something stern. "But not for free, Northman. And not in ignorance. I don't aid those I don't know." And he wasn't looking at Loki's face as he said it. He was looking at the swirl of Grace around his chest, at the shadows of vast wings at his back.

He was looking at Gabriel.

"No," Loki said, very quietly, ignoring the swell inside him as Gabriel tried to come to the surface again, ignoring the nervous twist in his chest. "That's not my secret to tell, and I'm in debt enough as it is. Ask another price, sea god."

Manannan smiled reproachfully. "I haven't asked any price at all, yet," he noted mildly. "That's the condition, not the price. I don't offer life to just anyone, you know." A raised eyebrow, and another pointed look at the archangel inside him. "It's not as if you're hiding him, Northman. I may that little more perceptive than most, but he's not all _that_ far from the surface ..."

He stopped as Loki winced, eyes narrowing at the flush of guilt across their features, and then had to blink as Gabriel elbowed his way to the surface proper, growling a little at Loki in passing. Loki gaped a bit, but the archangel already had control of their face, so at least it wasn't visible.

"He's not hiding me because he's _dying_ ," Gabriel snapped, glaring at the sea god and pointedly ignoring Loki as he squawked warningly at him. "He's dying, and I'm the only thing keeping him alive, so forgive him for not being as secretive as he could be about it!"

Manannan stared at them for a second, while Loki panicked and wrestled Gabriel back. Fighting him, _again_ , and he could wish for the easier days of their partnership, because archangelic possession was _not_ an easy thing to fight, not at all, and he seemed to have been cursed by the single most _stubborn_ archangel in First-father's creation ... And then, a sound cut through their struggle, startled him enough that he lost back the ground he'd just gained, but Gabriel was too stunned himself to take advantage. As one, so much that Loki wasn't even sure which of them directed his body, they turned towards the stern, and the sea god bent over there. Laughing his head off.

"Oh, I like that," Manannan grinned, wiping his eyes. Watching them, and it wasn't what Loki had expected. Wasn't the mockery he'd braced for. Manannan laughed at them, but there was a twinkle of genuine amusement in his eyes, and more than a hint of warmth. "I do like that. So you're his guest then. Well, speak up, boy! Do you have a name?"

They blinked at him, warily, but then ... Gabriel shrugged internally, grimacing apologetically at Loki, and took their mouth again. "I don't suppose there's any chance you could do without the name? Only there are a few people I really would rather didn't find me ..."

Manannan raised his eyebrows again. They were very expressive features, those eyebrows. "I don't intend to bandy it about, you know. I just like to know who I'm speaking to, when we're talking about life and death, and ways between them. Just a little quirk."

Gabriel grimaced, but nodded. Loki scowled. "They call me Gabriel," the archangel muttered sullenly, fidgeting with a splinter under his hand and avoiding the god's gaze. "The, ah, archangel. Loki's giving me a lift, and a place to hide."

The sea god stared at them for a long, long minute, and then ... then he smiled at him, a small curl against his weathered cheek, and reached out across the rower's seats to pat their hand gently. Gabriel stared at him in shock. Loki wasn't that far behind him. "There now," the bastard murmured. "That wasn't so hard, was it? It's best to be truthful, you know, when dealing with gods. We do appreciate it."

It took Loki a second to realise that the blind, red-tinted urge to punch the old man in the face wasn't his. Or mostly wasn't his. For a servant of the most pontificating god known to man (at least if his priests were anything to go by), Gabriel really, _really_ didn't take well to being condescended to.

"He'll take that under advisement," he muttered hurriedly, wrestling the archangel into sullen silence and smiling queasily at the sea god. _You really don't get this whole begging-for-our-life concept, do you archangel?_ "Can we hurry the negotiations along a bit? Only the sea makes him nervous, you see ..."

Manannan looked at them strangely. "Well, it would," he said, obliquely, and Loki stared at him a bit, while a flush of guilt and old horror had Gabriel squirming lower inside their chest. Manannan watched him go, with eyes full of mist and the strange light of his Otherworld, and there was something almost like pity in that ancient stare.

"Ri-ight," Loki murmured slowly, resisting the urge to poke the archangel, to turn him over gently within him and see what was wrong. Later, for that. Later. "Ignoring the archangel for a moment, Lirsson," he prompted, with a little bite of impatience showing through. "About my request ...?" Plea, really, but he had some pride of his own.

Manannan blinked a little, refocusing on him instead of the being in his chest, and Loki found that ... oddly disturbing. For Manannan to see Gabriel, for him to address him directly, made him strangely aware of what they were doing. Aware that there was a foreign being inside him, moving through him and within him. An awareness like an itch on the back of his neck, a sense of invasion that he hadn't felt since those first, angry years together. Gabriel, unsettled and afraid within him, flinched further into himself, away from Loki.

"Yes, your request," Manannan murmured softly, a whisper of wind across the waves, a soft sighing in the mist. He was watching them, watching the strangeness between them, and Loki felt a stir of alarm at the gaze, a flutter of warning in his gut that this god, this being, was doing something. Affecting something. For a moment, an irrational fear touched him, that Manannan meant to steal Gabriel away from him, a fear made only stranger by the distance he'd felt a second ago. What should it matter to him if Gabriel was taken, if the invader was pulled from his breast? But something in him snarled at the thought, screamed in silent denial, and without thought his hands pulled close to his chest, a feeble guard over the archangel inside him, and he felt himself tighten defensively around the ball of soul and Grace that was Gabriel.

Manannan, Gatekeeper, the Otherworld drifting behind his eyes, watched them for another minute, his gaze piercing them full through, and then ... then the Sea God smiled. Grinned, a flash of mischief that Loki would recognise a mile away, flowing from Judge to Trickster as fast as the sea changed moods, but before Loki could recover himself enough to react, to prepare, before Gabriel could stir himself from his hypnotised sulk ... the sea god held out a hand, and the gleam of silver caught their eye, and their breath.

"It's youth you wanted, yes?" the sea god asked, with a smile tucked between his teeth. "Life. The blessings of the Otherworld in place of the Aesir's wealth, isn't it so?" He grinned, shifting the branch in his hand, letting them see it more clearly. Letting the gleam of silver steal their eyes, and distantly Loki realised there was something wrong here, something he should be remembering, but the apples, sweet-scented and ripe on their gleaming perch, stole his sense. "Then take an apple from my branch, boyos," Manannan whispered gently, mist and darkness, and blindly they reached out to take a kind pagan's hand.

For a second, the apple felt smooth and firm beneath their palm, an enticement and a heady thrill of achievement, hope, success. For a second, Gabriel swirled higher within him, a flash of fear and caution and hope. For a second, Loki felt a rush of triumph. 

Then the branch jangled at their tug, the apples swaying at their stays, and music sprang from the bough, a bright, laughing tune that washed over a stunned god and his archangel, and swept sweet nothingness in its wake. "My apples are not your apples, boyo," whispered a dark voice from the mists, cradling them almost gently as they faded, as Loki roared against the enchantment and Gabriel flailed desperately. Manannan ignored them, carrying them softly down with all the calm inexorability of the sea "My gifts are not so easily won as all that, you know. But rest a while. You can worry about all that in a little time ..."

And though Loki snarled at him, pride and desperation, the hand of the lord was upon them, and all was darkness for a time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was as far as this one got. *sheepish*


End file.
